“We want to get as many EVs on the road as possible,” said Mary Barra, the GM chief executive. “We believe climate change is real, and we have the ability and responsibility to create a cleaner, healthier planet.”

Robert Urbanek wrote:The last word on climate change and electric cars:

“We want to get as many EVs on the road as possible,” said Mary Barra, the GM chief executive. “We believe climate change is real, and we have the ability and responsibility to create a cleaner, healthier planet.”

Robert Urbanek wrote:The last word on climate change and electric cars:

“We want to get as many EVs on the road as possible,” said Mary Barra, the GM chief executive. “We believe climate change is real, and we have the ability and responsibility to create a cleaner, healthier planet.”

Or does someone here want to claim that General Motors is part of the George Soros-funded global Marxist conspiracy?

I think this statement serves a few purposes.

1 - In the last few years, GM (and ford) has been working towards shaking off it's "old school big company" image. They are trying to position themselves as a modern hip tech company like Amazon, google, facebook, etc. They've even opened large tech offices in various tech hubs in America. For example, they open a large site in Austin a few years ago, because they are trying to recruit SW/HW engineers. They are also actively trying to recruit people from silicon valley. This message about EVs and climate change resonant strongly with the young tech worker they are trying to hire. This message is recruitment PR.

2 - Younger people (GMs future customers) are on board with EVs and on board with fighting climate change. You might as well craft a message that your future customer base wants to hear.

The broader point I'm making is that the business of business is business. Companies don't say shit, just to say. They say for a reason, the above are two of those reasons.

1 - In the last few years, GM (and ford) has been working towards shaking off it's "old school big company" image. They are trying to position themselves as a modern hip tech company like Amazon, google, facebook, etc. They've even opened large tech offices in various tech hubs in America. For example, they open a large site in Austin a few years ago, because they are trying to recruit SW/HW engineers. They are also actively trying to recruit people from silicon valley. This message about EVs and climate change resonant strongly with the young tech worker they are trying to hire. This message is recruitment PR.

2 - Younger people (GMs future customers) are on board with EVs and on board with fighting climate change. You might as well craft a message that your future customer base wants to hear.

3 - There's hundreds of billions of dollars to be made replacing the fleets of entire nations with EVs.

"only 12% of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88% of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity - many two or three." - Professor Walter Ricciardi, Director of the Department of Public Health

Now if they only had a job. And that job paid more than subsistence wages. And there was money available to loan them to buy these cars. Then electric vehicles for the young would be spiffy.

Interesting to talk about markets when, for all intent and purposes there is no market right now.

But seriously. I got a call from a car salesman who wanted me to replace my Prius. Usually they have a pretty good answer for just about any objection. He just did not have one for "I am not going to go to your store because I might die from the trip and you can't come here because you may kill me".

You don't know about the totally incestuous relationship between Marxism and the global oligarchs? Marx himself was funded by the capitalist oligarchs. Engels was a capitalist oligarch. It's fucking ridiculous that you people don't have any idea about what you're involved in. You should go read Sutton's "Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution", like right now.

Wall Street's involvement in the Bolshevik Revolution was to destroy Russia as an economic competitor and turn it into "a captive market and a technical colony to be exploited by a few high-powered American financiers and the corporations under their control"

the Cold War was "not fought to restrain communism" but was organised in order "to generate multibillion-dollar armaments contracts"

"only 12% of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88% of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity - many two or three." - Professor Walter Ricciardi, Director of the Department of Public Health

Rancid wrote:True, but today, that total addressable market (TAM) is still small. It's going to need more time to grow. That said, the writing is on the wall, and EV will eventually replace gasoline.

That will rapidly change if the progs get their way. Taxes, subsidies, mandates, exploration and drilling bans, and refinery closures will force the more expensive, less efficient technology on society. They've already done it with wind and solar in Europe, UK, Canada, and some US states. That's what GM is betting on, not the competitiveness of the technology.

The one metric where gasoline is still king is energy density, and it's going to take a while before battery tech closes that gap significantly.

Even ignoring path dependency which would cost an astronomical to change at this point, the technology is nowhere near competitive with gasoline combustion.

"only 12% of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88% of patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity - many two or three." - Professor Walter Ricciardi, Director of the Department of Public Health